Skip to main content
Dessert

Rock Cakes

A sweet biscuit-like cake made with flour, raisins, sugar, butter, egg, baking powder, ginger, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Rock Cakes

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rock Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Combine flour and sugar in a bowl, then rub in the butter.

  2. Add the washed and dried raisins, baking powder, and ginger; mix well.

  3. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture.

  4. Add enough milk to form a dough.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds tenderness and richness to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture to the cakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cakes rise and stay light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Adding enough milk to form a dough. Too little milk leaves a dry, crumbly mixture that will not hold its shape, while too much makes the dough sticky and spreads it out. The dough should be stiff enough to form spoonfuls that keep their shape on the baking sheet.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, sugar, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, butter, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More rock cakes recipes

Coconut 5Orange 3 See all 75 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesSoft Ginger CakeSoft Ginger Cake56 recipes